Spring 2014 • Vol. 9, No. 1

Discusses the nature of principles, surveys various kinds of principles, draws crucial definitions of “principle” from the survey, and shows the vital role of principles in thinking.

Offers a concise history of the relationships and conflicts between Aristotelianism and the three major monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; illustrates the varying degrees to which Western and Middle Eastern cultures accepted or rejected The Philosopher's ideas and attempted to mix them with religion; and shows the power of rational ideas to sustain and further human life and the power of irrational ideas to throttle and thwart it.

What is the proper moral standard? As Ayn Rand identified, it is only a person’s own life that, ultimately, can serve as his highest value, which all other values properly support. Life, Rand pointed out, makes values possible and necessary.

Suppose a criminal brutally raped your daughter or friend and impregnated her, she got an abortion, and then the government subjected her to first-degree murder charges (for killing the fetus) and handed her life imprisonment or the death penalty. A proposal likely to appear on the Colorado ballot in 2014…

Yesterday Barack Obama nominated Janet Yellen as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, to replace Ben Bernanke next February. Yellen has been vice chair to Bernanke since 2010 and will likely win approval from the Senate. The first important thing to realize about Yellen is her ideology and…

That Cass Sunstein has no idea (or chooses to misrepresent) what Ayn Rand wrote, believed, and advocated is obvious from his recent, concerted smear of Rand. Among other absurdities: Sunstein claims that Rand believed that “people’s happiness” has nothing do with “anything spiritual,” when in fact Rand recognized that happiness…

My grandparents ate Crisco—a product notoriously high in “trans” (hydrogenated) fats—daily for years, and that practice may have contributed to their heart disease (they both suffered heart attacks). I personally seek to minimize the trans fats in my diet; I eat a tiny amount a few times per year at…

Suppose your city were on fire, buildings were ablaze, people were stuck in the buildings, and time was running out. And suppose the firefighters got busy—not manning fire trucks, fire hoses, and ladders—but inconclusively debating whether such tools exist. This, in effect, is what libertarians are doing as the Land…

A recent exchange about gun statistics illustrates the failure of libertarianism to base political freedom on anything other than personal or cultural opinion. In a recent blog post, Bryan Caplan, a libertarian anarchist and an economist at George Mason University (GMU), discusses a recent study linking gun ownership to suicide…

Today, a Colorado court demanded that Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Bakeshop, bake wedding cakes for gay couples or face fines, the Associated Press reports. But Phillips—who disapproves of gay marriage and says he’ll close his shop rather than bake cakes for gay weddings—has a moral right to refuse to…

I’m often asked why I make such a big deal about the libertarian MO of ignoring or denying the philosophic foundations of liberty. I give my general reasons in “Libertarianism vs. Radical Capitalism,” in which I provide several examples showing that the attempt to defend a free society apart from…

Many conservatives and “liberals” are deeply confused about the meaning of rights and tolerance, as recent controversies—including the one over Duck Dynasty—make clear. So now is a good time to clarify and distinguish these ideas. What Are Rights? A “right” is a moral principle defining an individual’s proper “freedom of…

Fittingly, Jobs opens with Steve Jobs receiving well-earned applause from Apple employees for the release of the iPod, a device that would, as Jobs predicted, revolutionize the music industry. Music is just one of several industries Jobs would revolutionize over the course of his career. Although it strays from essentials…

[Click for a PDF of the full chart] Human action, whether by individuals, groups, or governments, is driven by ideas—most substantially by the ideas people accept as morally correct. Why did Rosa Parks refuse to give up her bus seat to a white passenger? Why did Edward Snowden release classified…

Everyone knows that environmentalists seek (among other things) to shackle energy producers with government taxes and regulations. Less well known is that some energy consumers also seek to shackle energy producers with the aim of keeping energy prices low by forbidding them to sell energy to foreign buyers. The energy…

Earlier this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia “struck down the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules, which prohibited Internet providers from blocking or prioritizing Web traffic,” Brian Fung reports for the Washington Post. Although the ruling created a furor among leftist activists, it is…

[caption id="attachment_10286" align="alignright" width="300"] Wikimedia Commons[/caption] Listen to the mp3 audio of this post. Google the phrases “greater than yourself,” “larger than yourself,” and “bigger than yourself,” and you will find millions of related links. We all know the refrain (and its variants): “Live for a cause greater than yourself.”…

Richard M. Salsman reviews Free Market Economics: An Introduction for the General Reader, by Steven Kates.

Ari Armstrong reviews Responsibility & Luck: A Defense of Praise and Blame, by Diana Hsieh.

Slade Mendenhall reviews The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty, by Timothy Sandefur.